Saturday July 22, 2023
BEST OF VIRGINIA NONPROFIT NEWS | COMMENTARY: 'Tranquility Base: The Eagle Has Landed'
BEST OF VIRGINIA NONPROFIT NEWS
Virginia Mercury: ‘After being first in Virginia to use it, Arlington hits brakes on ranked-choice voting’
When Arlingtonians went to the polls last month to vote in a Democratic primary election for two open seats on the County Board, many were met with a question that had never been asked before during a government-run election in Virginia: “Are you familiar with ranked-choice voting?”
Arlington County’s closely watched foray into a new type of voting has drawn generally positive reviews, but the verdict from officials deciding whether the county should use it again has been mixed. On Saturday, the County Board opted not to implement ranked-choice voting in its general elections for board seats in November, pointing to confusion about the process and concerns about whether outreach efforts were translating to diverse support for the new system. However, several board members said they still want to pursue ranked-choice voting in future elections.
Cardinal News: Baptist churches with female pastors have gradually left the Southern Baptist Convention
The convention has set about amending its constitution to forbid women in pastoral roles. While multiple Baptist churches in Southwest and Southside have female pastors, only one is still a member of the SBC.
GUEST COMMENTARY
‘Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.’
By David S. Kerr
Editor’s Note: This past Thursday, July 20, marked the 54th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing. David Kerr - a local writer and political science professor at VCU - offers this memory of that unforgettable day.
This statistic came as a shock. Remarkably, the majority of Americans, alive today, were born after humankind landed on the moon. To them, this great accomplishment is simply another chapter in the history books. It’s been just that long.
However, that wasn’t always the case. In July 1969, Apollo’s mission, sending a man to the moon and returning him safely seemed like the ultimate human achievement. That is if we could actually do it. Nothing about this great undertaking was certain. It was daring, it was bold, and it was dangerous. Would the most complicated machine ever designed by humans work as planned? I still remember, age 11, sitting with my grandfather, grandmother, both born before 1900 and my Dad, watching the coverage of the Apollo landing. It was Sunday afternoon July 20, 1969.
No one in our normally chatty little group said a word as we listened to the transmission from the Lunar Excursion Module. That’s the spidery looking craft that took the first humans on the last leg of their voyage to the moon. It was a tense and expectant few minutes. Neil Armstrong, the mission commander was flying the craft, trying to find a good landing spot while Buzz Aldrin was giving him the information on how close they were to the moon’s surface.
Then, there was a pause. The transmissions ceased for a moment or two. No one back on earth seemed to be breathing. At which point, Neil Armstrong, with his typical unflappable midwestern manner, made that historic transmission, “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” We had arrived on the moon.
For the next few hours the world, and I mean, the whole world, waited, literally, for the next step. Because that’s what it was all about. Man’s first foot step on the moon. It was one of history’s most watched events. More than a billion people, from Moscow, to Tokyo, Sydney, London, Mexico City and Paris, watched the adventure unfold on their TV screens. We waited to see the first human set foot on the moon. The landing had occurred at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The moonwalk, the show everyone was waiting for, wasn’t scheduled until after midnight. Apparently, NASA had expected that its astronauts would benefit by some sleep, but Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were having none of it. Sleep? What was NASA thinking. They wanted to walk on the moon. It’s also likely that NASA’s well-known publicity apparatus got into the picture too. They wanted the biggest show ever to be in prime time in the U.S. and not in the time slot reserved for the late-late show. So, the walk was pushed forward.
It was just a short descent down a small ladder, wearing bulky moon suits and then one small step onto the Lunar surface. It seems rather inconsequential put like that, doesn’t it, but the experience of watching the event, thanks to a camera NASA had attached to the leg of the lunar module, had no equal. For many of us, of a certain age, little else compares. At 10:56 in the evening Neil Armstrong, the shy and retiring spaceman from Ohio, became the first human on the moon. We had done it.
Think of what it proved. We weren’t earthbound anymore. Humans could survive and work in space. Not just orbital journeys, but on trip as far away as the moon. What’s more, consider the timeline. It was America at its best. President John Kennedy had only made it official U.S. policy that we would launch a manned moon mission before the end of the decade in 1962. Seven years later, in an incredibly short period of time, the American ccientific and engineering community had conquered every technical problem, learned the business of spaceflight, dealt with every setback, and landed humans on the moon.
It’s a staggering feat. It deserves to be remembered. But there is one thing. For reasons that still don’t make sense, at least to me, we never went back. Since 1972 no human has ventured into deep space. We have done wonders with our interplanetary probes, our rovers have explored the surface of Mars, we have tested new propulsion systems, we have vastly expanded our skills in materials development, propulsion, and computing. We built the International Space Station and have discovered thousands of planets orbiting around other stars. But, still, we haven’t ventured more than a few hundred miles into space.
However, as we note the anniversary of humankind’s first footstep on the moon, now 54 years past, our space program seems, once again, ready for great adventures. Perhaps the waiting was worth it. NASA’s Artemis program recently sent an unmanned ship, complete with crew compartment but no crew, on a trip around the moon. They hope, in 2025 to hear those words announcing a successful landing one more time. And after that, a moon base. Mars. The sky really is the limit. That, and the limits of our own curiosity and courage.